


Anyphaena

by Boxerwing



Series: The Curio Cabinet of Incomplete Oddities [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Future Fic, Other, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22397002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boxerwing/pseuds/Boxerwing
Summary: In the future, humans can change out body parts with "augments" (artificial parts) as easily as going to the dentist.  What would it take to live in a world like that...
Series: The Curio Cabinet of Incomplete Oddities [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609414
Kudos: 1





	1. An Attendant with Augments

**Author's Note:**

> Please note:
> 
> As of January 2020, this work is part of the series "The Curio Cabinet of Incomplete Oddities". As such, you must note that this is an incomplete work and may or may not be completed in the future. Reader beware.

The blazing whiteness of the midday summer sun lit the restaurant dining room through the huge floor to ceiling windows and the grey and silver of the interior contrasted with the yellow sand of the view. The restaurant was supposed to be chic and luxurious, but in the overbright light, it only looked cold and sterile. A vague wind outside was attempting to create whorls of sand, but they dissipated almost as soon as the twirling began.

I sighed to myself and focused on both the plate in front of me and the conversation around me. This was some sort of business meeting that I had been hired to work at as an Attendant and truthfully, Attendant was simply another word for expensive call-girl. Why I was hired, I only had a vague idea; decoration, space filler, stress-reliever for later. It’s what I did for a living and it didn’t bother me. I made fabulous money, had my augments upgraded on a regular basis, and wanted for pretty much nothing. If I had to attend a few boring businessmen a few evenings a week, then a few hours that were not my own were well worth the payoff.

I picked up my fork and for a split second I was surprised at the darkness of the skin of my hand, but then I remembered and relaxed. The client had wanted a curvaceous, dark-skinned, short-haired black woman, and that is exactly what they got with me. Although had they wanted a slender, pale-skinned blonde, or even a muscular, brown-haired man, they could have gotten that with me too.

My augments were absolutely top-of-the-line. My skeletal structure had been replaced with synthsteel scaffolding, and my synthskin, synthmuscles, and eyes could all be changed to meet the needs of any client with fairly minimal problems and time spent. Much of my organs had been replaced as well; even my intestines which were so intricate that I could eat and shit like an unaugmented human. Pretty much the only things that remained of my original human body were my brain and my spinal cord; although I allowed my augments to be hooked into my central nervous system, there was no way anyone was going to fuck around with the essence of who I was. 

Today, they wanted me, a black woman with short-cropped hair, and that is what they got. I dragged my fork across my plate, disrupting the perfectly placed cubes of food which had been ordered for me into a disordered mess.

“Is the food not to your liking, Sylvie?” It was the businessman who’d hired me for the evening, one Mr Satch. My name wasn’t Sylvie, but it was part of my contract to have a name starting with ‘s’ so that my internal name recognizer would twig and alert me when I had been spoken to.

I beamed a smile at the small, thick man. “The food is lovely. Thank you.” I lowered my eyes; I knew that I often intimidated my customers with my impressive array of augments and acting somewhat deferential made them feel more comfortable and in control.

I heard a soft grunt of acknowledgement and the conversation picked back up around me. I carefully speared a cube of unrecognizable food and delicately ate it. Fish, definitely toro. Another cube, this time a lightly steamed bland vegetable of some sort. Not exactly my type of food; I much preferred earthy, home-style meals, but I ate what was placed in front of me when I was working. 

I glanced around the table. People were eating and chatting about what I assumed was business. Pretty much everyone at the large table had the distinctive posture of businessmen and whether they were doing legal or illegal business I didn't know. If I overheard anything, as an Attendant, I was expected to keep anything I learned secret; it's one of the reasons why I got paid so highly. 

The meal continued on and I kept to myself unless spoken to. I was not here as a cohort of these people but as entertainment only. 

“Sylvie? We're moving upstairs, please, come with me.” Mr Satch held his hand out to me and had a thin smile on his face. 

“Absolutely, sir,” I replied smoothly and slid my hand in his. It was time to go to work.


	2. Getting Home

The sun had set and the wind had picked up by the time my evening was done. Painful grit pelted me as I waited for Jerika, my pick up person. He was late as usual and one of these days his tardiness would end up costing us both. I raised my coat collar around my lower face and pulled my cloth head protector down to my eyebrows. With my augments, I felt just as much sensation, if not more, than a non-augment. 

I was about to send out a call to Jerika when I saw his low, sleek, black SandTrundler finally make its way down the road towards me. It glided to a stop in front of me and the back door retracted to allow me entrance. 

“About fucking time, Jerk. If I had been out in the blowing sand much longer, the skin on my face would have gotten pockmarked. Ennozzo would have had your head, and I would have gotten in shit,” I grumbled. 

Jerika just laughed. He put the SandTrundler in drive and we glided off. 

“You Attendants. You always think you're some sort of delicate flowers when I know for a fact your synthskin is tougher than leather.”

I had settled myself in the back of the vehicle; I'd pulled off my hair covering and shoved it in my bag, and flipped down my coat collar and unbuttoned it. I flicked my eyes to look at Jerika, and what I saw made me blink then smirk. 

The outline of an eye glowed from under the skin on the back of Jerika’s neck. It was winking at me. 

“Really?” I laughed. 

Jerika chuckled. “Glad you finally noticed.” The eye dimmed to barely noticeable and appeared to partially close. “It's supposed to drive the ladies crazy. Or guys. I'm not fussy.”

“You are such a crow. Sparkly, bright, garish? If it's an augment with one of those descriptions, you want it more than getting your dick wet.”

“Almost. If it gets my dick wet, then all the better.”

I smiled but didn't reply. I saw through the window that wind had picked up even more, the sand moving almost horizontally to the vehicle. The SandTrundler skidded and lurched a bit; I knew Jerika needed to focus if I was going to get home in one piece. 

“Wanna stop for your regular before you go home?” he asked, not pulling his eyes from the road. 

“No. No sushi for me tonight. I already ate _coreachena_ (CORE-ee-ah-CHAY-nah) for dinner; that's enough raw food for me.”

“ _Coreachena,_ hmm? Did you at least get decent portions? The last time you ate haute cuisine like that we had to go out for burgers, fries and milkshakes you were so hungry.”

“Yeah, the portions were good enough. Most of it was barely recognizable as food, but you know how these _coreachena artistes_ get.” I sighed and rested my head back. “I just want to go home.”

We drove along in easy, companionable silence for a little while. At a stoplight, Jerika murmured low, “How's Lil’ Sis doing?”

I sighed and squeezed my eyes shut. “New augments a couple of days ago, so that should tell you how she is.”

He swore under his breath. “She should know better. She…”

“I know, I know,” I cut him off. We'd had the same conversation many a time, with always the same result: frustration. “Of course she knows better. But when has that ever stopped her?”

Jerika only swore again once and carefully got me home.


	3. Lil' Sis and PASS

As I unlocked the door to my house, I mentally steeled myself. Halnah, my little sister, the sister Jerika and I had been talking about, was staying with me while she recovered from her augment surgery and PASS, Post Augment Surgery Syndrome. Not everyone who got augments got PASS, and those who did get it each had their own unique symptoms. Unluckily for me, Halnah’s symptoms comprised of swelling and stabbing pain around the augmented area, and temporary personality changes which changed my normally mature, easy-going and happy sister into a grumpy, whiny, annoying child. It was fortunate for both of us her PASS lasted only a few days, a week at most, or I think we both might have killed each other.

I entered my house, and I had barely removed my coat when I heard Hal’s PASS voice call out for me. 

“BB? Is that you? I neeeed you,” she called out from the guest bedroom.

I gritted my teeth, then called back, “Yeah, it’s me. Be right there.”

“Hurry. I’m hungry.”

I ran my hands over my hair, and took a deep breath then let it out slowly. I knew there was no way in the time I was gone that she could have possibly eaten all the food I left near her. She was literally like a child right now; she’d want ice cream and cookies instead of real meals, and it was going to be a constant struggle between us for the next few days.

I dreaded going into the guest room Hal was staying in; the last time she had PASS she’d regressed to a young child and shit and pissed everywhere, along with making a total mess. She’d never regressed that young before, and I crossed my fingers that Hal’s symptoms wouldn’t be so bad. She didn’t get major augments this time like she had last time; for Hal, the severity of her symptoms correlated with the number of augments she received. This time, she’d gotten “nano cellular augments”; augments that worked within the cells to make her natural human structure stronger, more flexible, and quicker to heal. 

My sister was a dancer with the Western Empire Modern Dance Company. The company was government-run and had strict guidelines as to which augments were permissible and which ones would get you kicked out. I knew Hal had no choice but to keep up with what augments she was allowed; newer, younger dancers were always vying for her position as Second Lead, and she was forced to keep herself in the best shape she could to not lose ground that had been hard-won for her.

As I peered around the door frame, I let out a sigh of relief. Sure, the room was a bit messy with empty plates on the bed, blankets on the floor and such, but it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the disaster I was dreading.

“Hey you,” I said with a smile, sitting on the bed next to Hal. “How’s it going?” I stroked her long, silky brown hair away from her pouting face.

“I was lonely today. And hungry.”

“You know I had to work. And it looks like you did eat something.” I stroked her head.

“I _know_ that. I’m not stupid, you know. I just...yeah. And there was nothing good to eat, but I was so _hungry_ …”

“It’s okay, Hal. I don’t have to go and change out my augments until tomorrow late, so I’ll be here for a while.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” she sighed and snuggled under her blankets.

“Mmm-hmm; it is a good thing. Still hungry?”

“No, just tired now.”

I lowered the lights with my neural interface. “Then sleep. Just call me if I’m not here.”

“Mmm-hmmm…” she mumbled, then her eyes drooped. Before long, she was snoring softly, and I tucked the blankets up under her chin and tiptoed from the room.


	4. Confrontations

The following morning was more difficult than the previous night. Hal had only gotten a few hours of sleep, and her PASS was at the worst part. 

“I don’t want to!” Hal screamed at me. “I don’t want to eat _that_!”

I rubbed my face, and plopped her breakfast down on the bedside table, placing an electronic food warmer over it. As much as I knew her attitude was part of an illness, that didn’t make it any easier. 

“I know. But you’re going to be hungry later, so I’ll leave it. Do you need anything else right now?”

She crossed her arms in front of her and pouted. “No. Go ‘way.”

I tried to smile at her, but I knew the one that moved across my face was tight and unnatural. We had been through this so many times, _so many times_ , that it was getting tiring. Hal was always so appreciative and apologetic afterwards, and I knew that I would be there for her every next time she got more augments, but going through it never got any easier.

“I need to go out, but I’ll be back later,” I said sliding from the room, closing the door behind me before she could reply. 

I’d gotten a call from Jerika earlier, asking if he could pick me up and take me in for my augment exchange in the morning rather than the afternoon. He had a few things he needed to do and as much as I knew I should stay close to Hal, it wouldn’t matter when I actually went in because morning or afternoon she’d still be the same. I agreed, and he was due here soon.

I grabbed my coat and slipped from my house, locking the door with a special passcode. I doubted that Hal would actually try and leave being in so much pain, but I didn’t want to risk it. I’d learned that lesson, hard. I’d only needed to learn it once.

The wind storm from the previous night had died away, but everything was covered in silt and sand. I took the broom leaning up against the house and quickly swept the porch clean while I waited. If I let the sand pile up, it wouldn’t take long for me to literally be unable to get in my front door. 

I was resting the broom back in its spot when Jerika’s SandTrundler glided to a stop in front of my walkway. 

“How’s Lil’ Sis today?” he asked as I settled into the back seat.

“She’s fine.”

“Much regression this time? Pain? Swelling?”

“She’s been worse.”

Jerika just nodded and I gazed out the window as we drove along. I lived in a decently nice area of town, a place I never expected I’d end up. The dome-shaped tan homes were just as covered in sand as my place had been, and not a few people were out sweeping and brushing their homes clean. It was part of living in a desert city; this may have been one of the most metropolitan cities in the Western Empire, but when a windstorm came through, everyone was equal and did their bit.

Jerika avoided most of the morning traffic, and it wasn’t long before we arrived at our place of employment: Annie’s Attendants. There wasn’t and never had been an “Annie”, but Ennozzo Baret, the owner and general manager, felt that the name was somehow approachable yet glamorous. I had no idea why he thought that; it didn’t sound glamorous in the least. He could have called it “Fucktendants” and as long as I still had a good-paying job, I wouldn’t have cared. Not that Ennozzo gave a shit what his employees thought about how he ran his business.

Argen, the receptionist, nodded at me as I entered. Argen was an older woman, always wrapped in long, flowing garments and headwraps, and had been the receptionist long before I ever started at Annie’s.

“You’re early. How did last night go?” she asked as I sauntered into the reception area.

“Same old, same old; just different people. You know how it goes.”

She gave a vague shrug. “Yeah, I do. You can head down, but I don’t know if they have the time to fit you in early.”

“Thanks. I don’t mind waiting.” 

I headed towards the staircase behind her desk and she said quietly, “Just to let you know, Kentra’s down there waiting too.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“It’s nothing. Just don’t want you two to get into it again. This desk is just not the same as my old one.”

I caught her eye as I headed down the stairs and winked at her. “I always knew you liked me the best, forewarning me.”

She huffed and turned back to her computer, and I just laughed and stepped down the stairs.

Kentra and I had a...past, I guess you could say. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, her personality grated on me like a rasp, and she had no issue hauling off and hitting anyone who irritated her. I irritated her a lot. Most of the time on purpose.

About a year ago, Ennozzo had had enough of spending so much of his profit on repairing augments that had gotten damaged when Kentra and I scuffled. When she and I had gotten into it in the reception area, Argen’s desk was not the only casualty. Kentra and I paid “stupidity tax”, a 20% decrease in pay, for 6 months to pay for the damages to the building and the augments we were wearing at the time. When Ennozzo put our pays back up, he warned us that the next time she and I fought, the “stupidity tax” would be more of a “get the fuck out of here and don’t come back tax”. 

When I got to the landing for the basement, I took a couple of moments to prepare myself. A few fast blinks brought up my internal assessment screen into the vision in my right eye. Everything was working at peak perfection. I scrolled quickly through the list, making sure I was at least vaguely familiar with the abilities of the augments I was wearing. No exceptional abilities, but what I did have would let me kill Kentra 5 times over without a scratch. Ennozzo might be an asshole, but he never wanted his Attendants put in a position where they couldn’t get themselves out. 

I tilted my head to the left, clearing my vision. A quick head tilt to the right made me feel more balanced, and I went through the door to the basement.

A petite blonde woman was lounging in a recliner, working or reading on her tablet. The outside might change all the time, but I could always recognize Kentra from the look in her eyes. The augments she was wearing made her look very young; barely 20 if I had to guess. But the pompous look of superiority that oozed from her eyes made her look anything but youthful or innocent. Her lips tightened when she glanced at me over her tablet.

“Baby,” she said, her voice clipped.

I ground my teeth together. No one called me “baby”. Only Hal was allowed to call me by the short form “BB”, and I required everyone else who was not a client to call me by my full name: Behi-Bayhene (beh-HEE bay-HEEN).

“Kent,” I replied. I knew the masculine name bothered her just as much as the short form of my name bothered me. Kentra was everything feminine; she never took jobs that required her to be androgynous, male, or hermaphrodite. I, on the other hand, had no such qualms about my gender or lack thereof. I may have been born a woman but now I was an Attendant, and I became whatever gender that was required of me.

I slid into a soft leather chair, keeping half an eye on Kentra. She had turned back to her tablet but the occasional flick of her right big toe gave her tension away. No matter the augments, certain habits and tics transferred with the person’s consciousness. I knew Kentra tried to show up everyone around her by becoming the perfect “person of her augments”, or by changing herself to suit her visible augments, but she could never get rid of that toe tic.

Pulling out my own tablet, I said, “You know, you really should get your personal anti-anxiety augment checked for faults. That toe of yours might as well be an LED sign above your head.” I smiled at her sweetly. “Just a suggestion. As a concerned co-worker, of course.”

She toed off her shoes and curled her feet under her legs. “I’ll take your concern under the consideration it’s due,” she replied smiling just as sweetly back. “And you should update your own; you need to stop grinding your teeth together. I wouldn’t want to be blamed, however indirectly, for you damaging your augments. But mainly as a concerned co-worker, of course.”

“Of course,” I replied. A tie. For now. 

I focused on my tablet and flipped through the news. It made good sense for me to be up on current events, as I never knew what my clients might want to talk about or what scenario I might end up in. 

In regional news, a few minor skirmishes had happened near the border of the Western Empire and the East Asia Union. That area always seemed to have some sort of disputes going on. The politics of the region were notoriously unstable and had been for decades. Land thievery, drugs, underground augment transportation, slavery; there wasn’t an illegal thing that didn’t go on there. I knew that from experience since Hal and I had grown up in that part of the Empire. We hadn’t lived right at the border but we were close enough to know that as soon as we could escape, we had to go. And we did.

Closer to home, the news was pretty unremarkable. A march for labourers’ rights. A few European Bloc drones shot down over the north part of the Empire. The public execution of an East Asia Union spy. A cheese and beer festival. Not much different from any other normal day.

I heard the nurse call for Kentra. Kentra put on her shoes, gathered her things, and left, not saying one word to me. I didn’t acknowledge outwardly her departure, but I relaxed as soon as she had left the waiting room.

I quickly brought up my home camera system to see how Hal was doing. It looked like she’d had a bit of a tantrum; her food had been thrown against a wall, but other than that, she looked okay. After flipping through a few websites, I was getting bored. I knew I still had a wait ahead of me, so I did what I normally did in a safe, secluded environment: I powered down my various augments and settled in for a nap.


	5. Changing Augments

My spatial awareness sensors woke me as soon as the nurse came within 3 metres of my sleeping body. My eyes fluttered open just as the nurse said, “Miss? Miss? We’re ready for you now.”

The nurse was one I was familiar with: very tall, very skinny, very bony, very black and very male. He had a few silvery external augments on his face, and one hand was a slightly different colour than the rest of him. He was bald and had the strangest red coloured eye augments I’d ever seen.

“Thanks, Pax. Just let me get all my augments online and I’ll be right in.”

He flashed me a silver-filled smile and wandered back to the augment transfer room. I did a quick status review of my augments; nothing was abnormal so I grabbed my bag and my coat and headed for the augment transfer suite. 

Just inside the door, I hung up my coat and my bag, then I headed to the corner of the room where the laundry basket was. I stripped off my clothing and tossed them in the hamper, then entered the decontamination room. I scrubbed myself under the warm sterilizing fluid to remove as best I could any random bits of live cells on me. The synthskin was not alive, and the decontamination shower was only to prevent any problems with the augment transfer procedure. The sterilizing fluid dried quickly once I had finished so I had no need to towel off once I was done; I simply continued on into the actual procedure room. 

Singha, the augment transfer specialist, acknowledged me with a nod from behind a small table while Pax was on the far side of the room getting my personal augments prepared.

“Any unexpected faults, error codes, damage or inclusions?” Singha said blandly.

“Why yes, my evening went quite nicely, thanks for asking,” I replied. If personality could be augmented, I’d shove Singha to be first in line. Although, I think he’d actually need to have a personality for it to be augmented.

He didn’t even blink. “Any unexpected faults, error codes, damage or inclusions?” he simply repeated.

“No, Singha. No unexpected faults, error codes, damage or inclusions,” I sighed back at him.

“Ingestion of anything other than food and non-alcoholic beverages?”

“No.”

“Did you add any augments while you worked or during your time off?”

“No.”

“Did you remove any augments, temporarily or permanently, while you worked or during your time off?”

“No.”

“Fine. Read over the waiver for the augment transfer, sign it, then head over to the table.”

“Has anything in the waiver changed since my last transfer only two days ago?”

Singha blinked once. “Read over the waiver…”

“Okay, okay.” I quickly scanned over the waiver. Nothing had changed; it simply said that I agreed not to sue if anything went wrong with the transfer. As much as Singha had the personality of a rock, he did exceptionally good and fast augment transfers. The only reason he was working at Annie’s and not a certified augment transfer complex was the matter of him spending a few years in prison. He got caught doing illegal augment transfers and, well, now he was here instead of in a respectable complex.

I signed the tablet in the place marked with an x, and went over to the surgical stainless steel table, and rested face down.

“Any questions, concerns or problems before I start?” Singha asked.

“No.”

“Alert or sedated?”

I’d been through the transfer process enough times to no longer worry that Singha would do something stupid like put the wrong augments on me. As well, the sensation of losing part of my body one piece at a time until I was nothing but my brain and spinal cord then getting pieces reattached was very disconcerting and disorienting. For as often as I went through it, I didn’t need the extra stress in my life.

“Sedated.”

“Fine. I’m going to access your neural port and give you both an anesthetic and send code to turn off your augments. Ready?”

I felt a hand on my arm and I turned my head while Singha fiddled with the neural port in my lower back. 

“You’re going to be fine, miss. Just like every other time,” Pax said softly.

“Just like every other time. Ready, Singha. Do your best.”  
  
“I always do,” he mumbled.

I felt a cool sensation, then fuzziness, then I drifted easily off to sleep.

~~~~~~

My eyes opened wide.

“Miss? Everything went fine. You are back in your own augments. Whenever you are ready, you can go home,” Pax said softly to me.

I did a quick internal review of my augments and seeing everything was normal, I looked over to him. “I’ll get going now.”

He rested a hand on my shoulder, his red eyes smiling. “It’s no trouble, miss. Take your time. Doing full-body augment changes is hard on the psyche.”

I curled up my arm and patted his hand. “I’m used to it. It’s why I get sedated; fewer problems in the long run.”

He took his other hand and pet mine. “But still, you know perfectly well what can happen if you don't take your time.”

I had to roll my eyes at him. “Okay, _Mom_.”

He chuckled and turned away to toss a few blankets in a hamper. “I’m not your mother, but I think sometimes you need one, miss.”

I swung myself upright to sit on the side of the table. Instinctively, I ran my left hand in front of my left ear, feeling for the raised decorative metal implant there. And, yes, there it was. Smooth, supple, silky. Familiar. Comfortable. As much as I recognized my personal augments from my internal review, the simple act of touching a tangible piece of me, something mine, made me feel like I had come home.

“Your personal clothing is just on the bench over there. Have a good night, miss,” and he pushed a trolley with my work augments out of the augment suite, giving me a little wave as he left.

I looked down into my upturned palms. Shimmery, greyish lilac. Definitely me. Pale enough not to be too different, yet distinctive enough to be mine. 

I pushed up and off the table, standing still for a moment after becoming upright. Even after so many transfers of augments, the first time I stood up was always an uncomfortable feeling. The augments I wore for my job were rarely the same height or size as my personal ones, so my viewpoint and interaction with the world and objects were constantly changing. It always took a few moments for me to get reacquainted with the body I was working with so that I wouldn’t end up smashing into things or falling over.

I started by looking down at my feet, then scanning up my body. I stretched my arms out in front of me, then spread them out to the side, then twirled in a circle. This helped me reorient to my own personal space, how far I would have to reach for things, how long my stride was, those sorts of things. 

I went over and picked up my fine, white cotton, slim-fitting caftan and wriggled it over my body. I grabbed my stockings from the chair and sat down in the now-empty seat. I perfunctorily slid my white silky stockings up to my thighs and pulled on my low heeled, calf height, white patent leather boots. A quick twist of my hands and I covered my fine, long, pale lilac hair with a matching white, fine cotton head wrap. 

I brought up my internal communicator and checked for messages. One. Jerika. 

“Hey there. Hope the augment transfer procedure went as smoothly as it normally does. If you want, I can pick you up and drive you home. Call me either way. _Todo, vioi_.”

Jerika’s goodbye always made me smile; _todo, vioi_ roughly translated to “(wishing you) All and everything, smartass,” in the most respectful way possible for such a backhanded compliment. 

A drive home from Annie’s after the augment transfer was not part of Jerika's duties. I was technically on my own time, and Jerika wouldn't get paid to get me home. But a drive home would be nice, instead of having to wait for crowded public transportation or pay through the nose for a cab. 

I called him, and he picked up immediately. 

“Hey, _vioi_.”

“Hey, Jerk. Is your offer to drive me home still available?”

“Of course it is.”

“Well, I'm ready whenever you are.”

“I need about 75 minutes. Can you wait?”

I checked Hal on my tablet. She was sleeping and looked fairly comfortable. “Yeah, I can wait; I’ll be over at ISOs. Can you pick me up there?”

“Not a problem. You know, you should buy in a partnership there, the amount of time you spend there.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don't know. If I could, I would, and I wouldn't be working at Annie's, that's for sure.”

“Well, if you ever do buy in there, remember your friends, hmm?”

I laughed. “I'd hire you in the blink of an eye, you know that. But, well, you know.”

“I know, _vioi_. I'll see you there in 75.”

“See you then,” and we disconnected.


	6. Down Time at ISOs

“ISO” was the short form for “Individual Specialty Offensives”. ISO had been military training terminology which then slid into the popular lexicon for one on one hand to hand combat. ISOs, the place, was a combination recreational neural enhancement lounge and entertainment complex to watch and bet on people beating the shit out of other people. The neural enhancement part was similar to having a drink in a bar, only there was code and carefully controlled drugs injected into your neural port. You could choose anything from a gentle buzz to something relaxing to something that got the adrenaline pumping. All legal, of course. There were common combinations you could get at just about any lounge, but whoever mixed up the “duncs” (combo of the drug and code) at ISOs was a genius at what they did. The duncs were simply spectacular in effect, with very little hangover, no errant code left in your interface, and left you with empty pockets at the end of the night. If the world were a different place, people would end up dunc addicts at ISOs, begging for the next experience, but the guys who ran it were very, very careful. 

James and Edward, transplants from the European Bloc, wanted return customers, a good reputation, and no trouble from the cops. Limits were placed on every customer for both nightly and weekly amounts and no amount of begging, threatening or bribery was going to get them to change it. Part of the agreement of being a customer was to accept the limits placed on them, no questions asked, and if the limits changed, there was a damned good reason. 

I was a long-time customer and my limits were at their max: three duncs a night, max five nights out of seven. There had been times, times when things were much worse than were right now, that I wished I could just do dunc after dunc after dunc, night after night after night. James had cut me back for a while; I’d been pretty pissed at the time but he had been right. My life had turned around, and he, Edward, and I had discussed upping my limits. At first, I had been all gung-ho, then I swung to hesitant. We talked about me putting a temporary limit on my dunc absorption amounts; they also reminded me that there was no reason I _had_ to hit my daily and weekly limits. Just like a vehicle speed limit, my dunc limits were the max I could have; enjoying less was totally fine. I let them increase my limits, and though I did go to ISOs pretty regularly, I still didn’t hit my limits on anything like a regular basis.

When I arrived at ISOs, the bouncer at the door, Alivian, waved me through past the long waiting line. Not only was I a long-time customer, but I also had a yearly membership which allowed me instant entrance as long as there was space. The bouncers never let the lounge get too full, even on Pro or AAA fight nights. Tonight was AA and B night; some good semi-pro fights would happen later in the evening, and the opening fights would be only slightly better than pulling two people with random augments off the street.

My eyes adjusted immediately to the dimness inside the lounge. The inside of ISOs was navy and grey, with sparkling glittery decorations. It was just on the right side of tacky; distinctive without being too distracting.

I heard a yell and a couple of shouts of encouragement from the viewing platform surrounding the opening to a combat ring, so I wandered over and chose a table close to the action. I checked the time; I had enough time to enjoy a half dunc and be close to normal when I got home, so I scanned my banking card into the menu reader and chose something light. A 0.5 CX-152 would give me a nice buzz, a bit of a mellow feel and would be a pretty nice way to welcome myself back into my own augments. It didn’t take long for a Connector, one who helped you connect up to the dunc lines, to come over and hook me up. Within moments, the dunc was flowing into my port, and immediately I felt more at ease. The stress of Hal and her PASS, Kentra and her annoyances, Jerk changing my schedule around; it all just drifted into the background. 

Another cheer from the platform caught my attention just as my dunc finished infusing. I unlocked myself from the tubing and made my way over, pushing between two people to get close to the barely-there railing. The fighting ring was set deeply into the floor, to the point that the spectators were actually looking down through what would have been a ceiling of a 10m in diameter concrete room. This ring was the smallest of three rings at ISOs but was also the most central. 

Peering over the railing, at first glance, the fighters seemed unfairly matched. I perused the tablet attached to one of the posts of the railing: this fight was between two people with their own augments. One person was named Bhatto and the other Camine. A list of each person’s augments, as well as their fight history showed up under their names. The person named Bhatto was less than 2m tall, small for an ISO fighter. They didn’t have excessive amounts of augments, but the augments they did have were strong, streamlined, and multipurpose. The one named Camine was more typical for a B-grade fighter: over 3m tall with big, bulky and heavy augments designed for the maximum amounts of destruction through sheer brute force. Both fighters wore the protective helmets and spine protectors required of low-grade amateur fighters; James and Edward wanted the fighters to come back and fight again, not pulled out of the fighting ring brain-damaged or paralyzed. 

The dunc I had infused might have relaxed me but it had the benefit of temporary increased visual acuity. A flash of copper caught my eye; it seemed that Bhatto has some decent mid-range augments that were mass produced but were of quite good quality. The copper owl tags on some of Bhatto’s augments told me that they had been made by Jubula Augments, a company that specialized in ISO fighting augments. Bhatto might be small but whoever they were they were serious about fighting.

The screech of metal shearing and the patter of bolts hitting the floor made me focus on the two fighters. The smaller Bhatto had managed to get around the side of Camine and was simply tearing protective steel sheeting from their lower limb. A crunch and a grind, Camine hit Bhatto with a massive fist in the shoulder and Bhatto let out a low moan. Another point in Bhatto’s favour as adding in sensory augments cost money but were beneficial in giving feedback and additional information to the fighter.

Bhatto rolled, grabbing the loose steel sheet covering Camine’s left continuous track, ripping it clean off and tossing away. The covering gone, Bhatto could now disable Camine if he could get back into a beneficial position. Bhatto scrambled to a wall, crouching on all fours and Camine whirled to face him. With a whirr and a thump, Camine shot a short steel staff at Bhatto which missed him completely and embedded deeply into the wall.

Amateur mistake. Anything brought into the ring could be used by either fighter. Bhatto easily pulled the staff from the wall and now had a weapon. The crowd surrounding the ring booed and hissed; they were as aware as I was of what a stupid mistake Camine had just done. Bhatto tossed the steel bar from hand to hand and I could see Camine’s laser focus on it, trying to judge what his opponent was going to do. 

Bhatto tied the staff to the side of his thigh with a coil of wire he had wrapped there. Camine backed up a bit, then realizing the staff was not going to be thrown back at him, charged at Bhatto. Two massive steel fists the size of melons were aimed directly at Bhatto’s head as Camine rushed him. When Camine got close, Bhatto simply sprung high into the air, planting a foot on Camine’s bulky metal shoulder and springing far to the other side of the battleground, landing with a puff of dust and a creak of metal.

Crouching again, this time Bhatto launched himself almost horizontally at Camine, catching the larger fighter in the back before he’d had a chance to turn around. Bhatto clung to Camine, seemingly without needing to grip onto his opponent. Quickly flicking through Bhatto’s list of augments, I noted he had embedded electrically fed rare earth magnets; Bhatto could essentially stick to his steel-covered opponent for as long as he liked. 

Bhatto was magnetically attached to Camine’s back on an angle, his legs dangled from one side as his head and arms were close to the opposite shoulder. While Camine tried to capture Bhatto’s legs, Bhatto carefully peeled more protective steel from Camine. I couldn’t tell from my angle, but Bhatto was working feverishly at some bit of wire or augment while Camine twirled and whirled, reaching and trying to grab onto a slender shiny leg.

Camine finally captured one leg in his hands and started pulling and twisting it away in an effort to rip the limb from Bhatto’s trunk. Bhatto seemed unconcerned; he curiously let his leg get trapped and worked on while he continued to focus on whatever damage he was attempting to do. The crowd around me clapped and cheered on the larger fighter; as elegant as the surroundings were, ISOs clientele still wanted to see gore and carnage like the Romans of the long-gone past. I wasn’t cheering. I was way more curious about whatever Bhatto was doing, as undramatic as it was. Bhatto could have been smashing and slamming into his opponent, instead, he was being subtly methodical and non-dramatic.

When the whine of metal being stretched was sounding close to its breaking point, so many things happened it was almost beyond my improved eyesight to see them. Bhatto reached down to his thigh for the bar then released the magnets keeping him attached to Camine. Gravity pulled his body down and he used his free leg to push against Camine pulling his trapped leg free. His foot stayed in his opponent’s hands, but that didn’t distract him. Before he hit the concrete floor, Bhatto forced the staff up through the hole he’d created in the back of steel plating of his opponent. Whether it was the steel bar, the damage he’d already created or both, as Bhatto rolled away, Camine’s chest sparked blue and flamed red with oils and lubricants pouring in gushes from his chest and back.

Camine twirled in panic, desperately patting and gripping at the staff poking out through his chest. Scrambling towards his opponent, Bhatto grabbed onto the exposed wiring and joints of Camine’s one damaged limb and shredded it to bits, forcing the seriously wounded fighter to tilt and lean precariously. 

The crowd around me shifted their allegiance easily and was now cheering on the smaller fighter. Bhatto looked quickly up to the crowd and, if I didn’t know better, looked directly at my quiet form as he shoved Camine off-balance into the wall. Camine fell, broken and defeated, to the ground, one set of tracks still winding away. 

The big fighter growled and whined, bucking and rocking to try and regain his footing. It was futile; he’d not anticipated being in such a position so he’d never prepared for it. Bhatto limped calmly over to him, grabbing the exposed tip of the spear and turning his opponent fully on his back, now unable to do much else but flail helplessly.

“Do you yield?” Bhatto asked his defeated opponent.

“No! You fucking asshole! I’ll get back up and rip those pretty little limbs from you bit by bit!”

Bhatto picked up Camine by the point of the makeshift spear, metal creaking and popping, holding him easily above his head. “You are now upright, but you are still defeated. Do you yield?”

“NO! Never! You tiny-ass fucker; I’ll never say ‘yield’ to you!” he screamed.

Bhatto twirled Camine, now grabbing on to the handle of the spear sticking out his back. With both hands, he drove Camine into the floor, the spear holding him fast. “Well, if you can upright yourself from that, I’ll be willing to have a rematch. I accept that you yield, even if you cannot say it.”

A stream of profanities and a wave of cheering followed Bhatto as he bowed to the crowd then casually meandered from the fighting ring.

~~~~~

Jerk was uncharacteristically subdued when he picked me up. No sparkling lights, no winking eyes, not even the radio was on. As he slid up and stopped in front of my house, he cranked himself around to look at me, his silvery steely eyes boring into mine. 

“Hal’s in her off-season augment series, isn’t she?” he said.

“You know she is. Six more weeks of weeks alternating of augment-PASS then workouts to get accustomed to her new stuff.”

“Convince her to stop.”

I sighed. “You know I can’t do that…”

“You have to. You know the risks of her getting permanently stuck in PASS increase with each augment. And if something were to happen…”

“Like what? What could possibly happen?”

He tilted his head. “Stuff. You never know what is around the corner.”

“Oh, I know what is around the corner. Six more weeks of me taking care of Hal. Going to work. Relaxing at ISOs. That’s it.” I reached for the door.

He reached over and grabbed my hand, halting my exit from the vehicle. “No. You don’t know what is coming.”

I stared at his metal hand gripping my lilac one, then flicked my eyes up to meet his. “What are you trying to say, Jerika?” In all the time I’d known him, which was a considerable amount of time, he’d never been so serious. Ever.

He nodded, released my hand and turned away. “Just try, Behi-Bayhene. Try.” Jerika released the door lock and let it swing open. 

“Sure, whatever you say, Jerika.”

He simply turned back to the guide stick for the vehicle and nodded once. He never looked back as he drove away so he would have never seen me watch his vehicle until it was lost in the distance amid the other cars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the end of what I have written for this story.
> 
> There may or may not be more in the future, but assume that this is all there will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyphaena are sac spiders or ghost spiders.


End file.
